As summer comes to an end, we are reluctantly saying “Goodbye” (for now) to our latest group of interns.
At Indium Corporation we have fully embraced our internship program. Sure, at first it seemed like it would be a lot of work to get a fresh batch of interns trained - we are all quite busy taking care of our day-to-day responsibilities. Our latest group of interns proved that it was very easy on our staff and started paying off almost immediately.
Why were we so successful this year in particular? Here are some of my thoughts:
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We had a great talent pool. News of our internship program spread and we had a large selection (>200) of highly-qualified students interested in working with us.
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We were very selective. This goes along with the first point – we had more great candidates to select from, so we worked with the best of the best.
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The tasks we gave them were well-suited. It’s easy to give an intern busy work, but that’s not how you keep bright individuals interested and engaged. Speaking as a former intern (~12 years ago), we like to be challenged! In my opinion: a future mechanical engineer should get a mix of design work, hands-on work, and testing/diagnostics, at a minimum.
Hopefully some of those interns that are going back to school would like to come back to Indium Corporation one day. To all our interns I say: “Good luck in whatever you do, and thank you for everything while you were here. I wish you all the best.”
~Jim